Non-fiction Books, Popularisation of Science and Art

We award grants for science, research, art and culture. We support projects and people working in science, research, art and culture throughout Finland. Through our grantees, our work extends beyond Finland’s borders.

Private individuals, working groups and organisations from all fields of research, science and the arts are eligible to apply for a grant. In science and research, we provide funding for doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, research expenses and various research projects and events. In the arts, we fund creative work, project implementation and acquisition costs, events and the purchase of tools and materials.

The foundation’s call for applications is organised once a year in October. In 2026, it runs from the 15th to the 30th October.

During the foundation’s call for applications, you can apply for general working and expenditure grants, as well as specific grants for particular purposes. On the application form, select the grant that best matches the purpose of your application.

In addition, you can apply for the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Mobility Grant throughout the year and for a Residency Grant during the residency programme’s application period.

We also fund science, research and the arts in collaboration with other organisations. These include, for example, Säätiöiden post doc -pooli and New Classics. Applications for these grants are not submitted directly to the Finnish Cultural Foundation, but instead via the partner organisations’ own channels.

Finnish citizens, as well as private individuals and organisations residing or operating in Finland are eligible to apply for a grant.

You may also apply if your application has a clear, strong connection to Finland or Finnish culture.

If you are an individual applicant – that is, a private individual or a person in charge of a working group – you may submit only one application per call for applications. However, you may participate in another application as a member of a working group, act as the contact person in an organisation’s application or apply for a Musical Instrument Loan.

An application for a child under the age of 15 must be completed by a guardian in the child’s name.

An organisation that submits an application must be registered and hold a business ID. If the organisation is not registered, the application must be submitted as a working group.

We do not award grants to private entrepreneurs. A self-employed person operating under a business name may apply for a grant as a private individual.

An organisation that receives a discretionary subsidy or operational grant from the government or a local authority is eligible to apply for a grant. Organisations that are publicly financed, such as a university or a city theatre receiving a government subsidy, may also apply for grants for short-term individual projects, but not for the organisation’s core activities.

You can apply for a grant for carrying out the work, for expenses or both. The duration of the funding can range from a few weeks to several years.

The minimum grant sum is 3,000 euros. An exception to this is the bachelor’s or master’s degree students’ expenditure grant that covers the costs of their thesis and ranges from 1,000 to 4,000 euros.

We award only a small number of large grants of 100,000 euros and more. The number of grants exceeding 200,000 euros varies every year, but is usually fewer than ten. For the largest projects, we regard it as an advantage if other financiers are also involved.

Carefully planned self-financing, such as ticket sales, may enhance the project’s credibility.

Our grants are intended for fixed-term periods of work and projects.

You can view previously awarded grants on the Grants awarded page. Please note that this information is only available in Finnish.

Based on the information provided in your application form and the supporting documents, our experts will assess your ability to carry out the plan you have proposed. The supporting documents provide our experts with additional information, for example, on the person carrying out the work, the members of the working group, the overall budget or the background to the project.

Please check the specific webpage for the grant you are applying for to see which attachments are required. Mandatory attachments are marked with an asterisk on the application form.

Please add these attachments to your application by 5 February using the ‘Application management’ function in the Grant Service for Applicants. If an attachment is missing from your application when the grant decision is made, the grant may be awarded conditionally. In this case, the attachment must be submitted via the Grant Service for Grantees before spending any of the grant.

Please submit your attachments in PDF format. We accept image or audio files in .bmp, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png, .tif, .tiff, .wma or .mp3 format. The size of a single attachment must not exceed 3 MB.

Under the heading Other attachments, you can add attachments that are not specifically listed on the form.

The form also has a separate section for web links. Please avoid using links to Google Drive, Spotify or other services that require registration in your application.

Particularly if an application relates to research or science, a reference will support the evaluation of the application by providing additional information on the applicant’s expertise, the feasibility of the plan and the significance of the work or project. It can be particularly useful if you are at the early stage of your career.

At the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, we require a reference from your supervisor on your academic performance, work plan or research plan. At the postdoctoral phase, a reference is not mandatory but we recommend you request one.

All applicants may request a reference from one to three referees to support their application.

We protect the privacy of both applicants and their referees. The applicant will not be able to view the reference or find out whether the referee has submitted one. The referee will not be able to view the applicant’s application.

Referees submit their references via the Grant Service for Referees. The service closes at 4 pm Finnish time (EET) on the final day for application submissions. If your referee does not use the online service, you may attach to your application a free-form reference they have provided you with.

We will only consider references submitted by the deadline.

Select the science or art grant that matches your objective from the list provided. At the same time, make sure you choose the appropriate type of applicant: a private individual, a working group or a registered organisation.

You may complete your application and attachments in Finnish or English. We ask all applicants to provide a brief description in Finnish of how the grant will be used. We will use the description in our communications if you are awarded a grant.

Your application will be saved as a draft in the Grant Service for Applicants until you submit it. If you do not submit your application by the deadline, it will remain a draft and will not be processed. The service also displays any applications you have submitted in previous application rounds.

If the application period has not yet begun, you can familiarise yourself with the sample form available in the Grant Service for Applicants. The sample form will give you a good idea of the form’s functionality and the options available in the various drop-down menus. The sample form cannot be saved.

Some grants may have a different structure than the one above.

Pay particular attention to the ‘Funding’ section if you are applying for a working grant. Choose the duration of the grant period, your percentage of working hours and the level of the working grant carefully, as these will affect the amount of the grant, if awarded. You can check the sums in the table for working grants.

You can move freely between the sections. Your details are saved automatically when you move from one section to another. You can also safely log out of the service without losing the information you have provided and continue completing your application later during the application round. You do not need to complete the application in one go; you can add information right up until submission.

Mandatory fields in the application are marked with an asterisk. You can check for missing information either separately in each section or via the list of missing information in the ‘Check and submit’ section. You cannot submit an incomplete application.

Fill in the text fields of the application clearly and concisely. Make sure you understand the question and give an answer to what is being asked in each field. Avoid repeating the same information in several sections. The information on the application form and in the attachments should complement each other.

Write your answers in such a way that even a person outside your field can gain a clear understanding of the key content of your application. If necessary, briefly explain any specialist terminology, abbreviations and methods specific to your field.

Ensure that the information you enter on the application form is consistent with your attachments. In particular, check the description of the intended use, the applied sum, schedule, working period, the location of the project and potential other financiers carefully.

There is a limit to how many characters you can enter in a text field, and it is shown on the application form. Plan your text in such a way that the most important information fits in the text field.

In the ‘Evaluation details’ section of the application form, you can select the evaluation field, intended use and, if applicable, the theme.

The theme selection helps us monitor how the applications relate to the foundation’s strategic priorities. It does not affect which evaluator is allocated to handle your application.

If your application relates to several fields of research, science or the arts, please select as the main evaluation field the one that is the most central to the evaluation. Select an alternative evaluation field only if expertise in an additional field is clearly required for the evaluation. Please note that there is usually no need to select fields closely related to the main one as alternative evaluation fields.

If your application combines research, science and the arts, please select as your main evaluation field the area of art, research or science that is the most central to the evaluation. You may also select a second evaluation field if your application requires expertise in both research or science and the arts.

If necessary, we may obtain a second expert reference to supplement the evaluation.

Once you have submitted your application, you can return to view it in the Grant Service for Applicants. During the application period, you can cancel the submission, in which case your application will revert to draft status, allowing you to edit it. Don’t forget to resubmit your application before the application deadline. Once the application period has ended, you can only supplement your application with specifically designated attachments.

What you are committing to when you submit your application

Please note that incorrect or incomplete information, failure to disclose funding from other sources, or any other action that is contrary to our guidelines may affect the payment of the grant or lead to the recovery of a grant that has already been paid.

What do we use the information you provide for?

We forward your application to an expert in either the national fund or a regional fund for peer review, based on the information provided in it. Such information includes the evaluation field (research, science or the arts), the intended use of the grant, the amount applied for, the location of the work or project and, where applicable, your place of residence or other connection to the region. You can find out more about our evaluation principles on the page How we process your application.

We make the information and documents contained in your application available to the experts who evaluate the applications we receive. We also retain information for the purposes of communication, statistics, research and the development of our operations.

Where necessary, we share information with other funding bodies to ensure the overall level of funding and to avoid overlapping grants. We may also disclose information for the purposes of statistics, research and development relating to foundations in Finland.

We use artificial intelligence responsibly and systematically to support the application process and in the processing of grants awarded. We do not use artificial intelligence to make decisions on grantees. Data from the applications is not used to train language models. The evaluation and grant decision are always made by a human being. Read more about AI in the grant application and evaluation process.

We process the personal data you provide in your application in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You have the right to access the data held about you and to request the rectification of any inaccuracies.

Read more about the processing of personal data in our Data Protection Policy

Read also our Data Protection Policy regarding grant applicants and grantees

We process and evaluate all applications in confidence. We forward your application to an expert in either the national fund or a regional fund for peer review, based on the information provided in it. We adhere to strict rules on conflicts of interest in our evaluation process.

Our evaluation panels, which consist of experts in specific fields of research, science or the arts, make recommendations on potential grantees. The final decision is made by the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

We will notify applicants by email in early February whether or not their application has been successful. We will publish our grant decisions on our website at the end of February. Mobility and Residency Grants, as well as Musical Instrument Loans, follow their own schedules.

When announcing our grant decisions, we will publish the grantee’s degree or profession, name, potential artist name, place of residence, the intended use of the grant and the amount awarded.

Please keep us informed if, whilst your application is being processed, you receive any other funding for the same or similar purpose or for the same period of work. You can report any new funding you have received from other sources after the application deadline using the ‘Application management’ function in the Grant Service for Applicants. This function is available until 5 February.

You can also use this function to withdraw your application if you no longer require the grant you have applied for.

Once the application period has ended, applications may only be supplemented with specifically designated attachments relating to a degree, permission to defend a dissertation, or the right to pursue postgraduate studies. Please add these attachments to your application by 5 February using the ‘Application management’ function in the Grant Service for Applicants.

Unfortunately, due to the large number of applications, we are unable to provide individual feedback on them. However, you can find out about the grants awarded and our evaluation criteria on our website.